[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: Outskirts]

Echidna was old.

Not merely ancient in the way mortals used the word—years stacked upon years, centuries pressed together—but old in the way reality seemed to remember her. She had existed long enough for the world to change its rules around her, long enough to watch civilizations rise, rot, and collapse back into dust while she remained.

Experience clung to her like a second skin.

As the Mother of Monsters, experience was inevitable. She had given birth to nightmares that would define eras, creatures whose names alone shaped myth and fear. She had seen her children hunted, worshiped, sealed, butchered, and feared in equal measure. She had watched heroes grow bold on borrowed courage and Gods grow cruel behind thrones of light.

She had challenged the Olympians once—truly challenged them—and lived.

She had preyed upon humanity in ages when they were fragile things, soft and desperate, and she had watched them become something more dangerous in their own right.

Her long life was not merely full of experiences.

It was defined by them.

Which was why—

"What?"

The word slipped from her lips before she realized she had spoken at all. It was a small sound. Barely audible over the crackle of settling debris.

Yet it carried something rare.

Shock.

Her emerald eyes were wide, fixed on the space where something should have been. Her lower serpentine body coiled instinctively, then uncoiled again, the movement subtle but telling. It was not aggression. It was grounding. A reflex meant to remind her that what she was seeing—or rather, not seeing—was real.

That this was not an illusion.

That she was not mistaken.

Cerberus stood to her side, all three heads snarling low in unison, massive body tense and ready to move at her slightest signal. Its presence was overwhelming yet she did not look at it.

She could not.

Because the plains before her were wrong.

The Hydra was gone.

Not retreating, buried, or obscured by smoke or debris.

Merely gone.

Moments ago, its colossal shadow had dominated the plains, nine heads weaving through the air, its sheer mass blotting out light. Now, there was nothing. No corpse. No blood. No broken remains strewn across the land.

Echidna's gaze lifted slowly.

Higher.

The clouds above were parted.

No—that was not correct.

This was not a gap, not a clearing formed by wind or chance. This was a vast gouge torn through the sky itself, spanning tens of kilometers, gray clouds peeled back as if something had passed through them without resistance.

The dull, muted sky beyond stared back at her, exposed and silent.

Her breath hitched.

("No…") The thought came unbidden, sharp with denial. ("It couldn't be.")

Her eyes turned, slowly, unwillingly, toward the one figure still standing amidst the ruin. It should not have been possible. Everything she knew told her it wasn't. His condition alone should have made such a thing absurd.

And yet there Dante stood where the monsters had failed to break him. Venom still coursed through his veins. His posture betrayed exhaustion. His injuries were severe. But he had not fallen.

What caught her attention, however, was what had changed.

His left arm hung wrong.

The gauntlet was crushed, alloy warped inward as if folded by an invisible force. The sleeve beneath it was torn and soaked dark with blood, the limb itself twisted into a ruined state that made Echidna's stomach tighten despite herself.

That injury had not been there moments ago. And she knew—knew—it was not the work of Orthrus or the Nemean Lion.

("Did he…") Her thoughts churned, racing to keep pace with what she had witnessed. ("Did he sacrifice his arm for a single strike?") Her gaze turned back to the empty plains where the Hydra should have been. But there was nothing. No fragments, no gore or even a lingering presence. ("There's nothing…) Her stomach sank. ("Did he completely eviscerate it?")

The realization did not terrify her because of the strength required.

It terrified her because he could still produce it.

("No…") Her thoughts snapped back, desperate for explanation. ("He must have used something else. A spell. A technique.") She focused, senses sharpening as she examined him more closely. His mana signature was unchanged. Stable and limited. The same as it had been before. ("So not magic…")

The possibility she did not want to entertain crept closer.

("But if it was pure strength—")

Where was the aftermath?

A blow capable of erasing a creature of that size—something that could blot out mountains—should have left devastation behind. The ground should have ruptured. The world itself should have reacted.

The planet should have noticed. And yet, aside from the parted sky, there was nothing. No violent shockwaves. No howling winds. No ruptured earth.

("Was it that precise?") she wondered. ("Controlled?")

The answer unsettled her further.

It was neither.

Dante's strength was not something the world could properly register.

It did not fit within the rules that governed reaction and consequence. There was no metaphor for it. No scale by which it could be measured. What he had unleashed had passed through reality too cleanly—like a blade sharper than the laws meant to resist it.

Strength that broke confinement.

Strength wielded by a human.

Dante lowered his gaze to his left arm.

("Unusable, as expected.") The assessment was clinical. ("Even in a partial state, Arcane Ascendance exacts its price.")

Arcane Ascendance was simple in theory.

For Inheritors, it meant housing another body layered over the original—one with vastly greater mana capacity and potential. But it was not free. Maintaining it still drew from the base body's reserves. Once those were depleted, the form would collapse.

Unless—

Unless one burned their own vigor to sustain it.

That had always been Dante's answer.

His mana reserves were pitiful by most standards. His body, however, had endured epochs. Normally, he could maintain Ascendance through sheer physical vitality.

Not now.

("In this state… a full transformation would have killed me.") He flexed his fingers once. The pain surged, bright and immediate. ("And my body is adapting to the venom too slowly.") The thought was almost resigned. ("This mangled state will have to suffice.")

His nerves screamed at him, every movement a reminder of just how damaged he was. It had been a long time since he had felt pain like this—real pain, the kind that did not fade into background noise.

It was disorienting.

Almost nostalgic.

("I got cocky.") The admission came without self-pity. ("And I paid for it.")

The ground shook.

Orthrus crashed back down onto the plains, landing heavily on all fours, both heads snarling as lightning crackled weakly along its body. Behind Dante, he could already hear it—the heavy steps of the Nemean Lion closing in once more.

("With the Hydra gone…") Dante straightened slowly, rolling his shoulders despite the agony. ("She's much more wary now.") His gaze turned briefly toward Echidna. ("She knows I'm hiding something.")

And because of that—

("She'll keep Cerberus close".)

The two monsters advanced, flanking him, intent renewed.

Dante exhaled slowly.

("Good.")

A thin, humorless thought followed.

("Which means I won't be interrupted.")

Now was not the moment for brute force.

Not again.

Strength had served its purpose, for now finesse would do.

Orthrus meanwhile moved first.

Not with hesitation, not with the testing prowls of a beast gauging distance, but with a violent certainty—as if the decision had been made long before Dante ever finished his last thought. The air cracked. Red lightning detonated outward from the hound's body in a bloom, the ground beneath its paws shattering as its mass simply ceased to occupy the space it had been in.

A pressure displacement as Orthrus reappear directly in front of him, space folding violently around its frame as though reality had been bullied into compliance. One head was already lunging, jaws unhinging wider than anatomy should allow, rows of crackling teeth wreathed in lightning aimed straight for Dante's throat.

A clean kill, by any reasonable metric.

But Dante did not retreat.

Instead, he shifted—a subtle roll of his shoulders, a precise turn of his hips that cost him far more pain than he allowed himself to acknowledge. His boots slid across the ground as he slipped just outside the arc of the snapping jaws. The bite closed on nothing but air, lightning exploding outward as Orthrus's teeth collided with themselves.

Dante was already inside its reach.

His right arm came up in a short, brutal strike. No wasted motion. The elbow struck the nearer head square in the cheek with a dull, meaty impact that echoed across the plains. Bone cracked. The force carried through, snapping the head sideways—straight into its twin.

The collision caused the second head to reel as its skull smashed against its counterpart, the lightning wreath around both muzzles flickering wildly as Orthrus staggered, claws gouging trenches into the ground as it struggled to regain balance. Its howl tore free—two voices overlapping, discordant and wounded.

Dante exhaled slowly through his nose.

He did not follow up.

He didn't need to.

Because something else was already moving.

A shadow surged over him, vast and heavy, accompanied by a guttural snarl that vibrated through the air. Dante felt it rather than saw it—the displacement and the heat crashing down from above.

The Nemean Lion.

Its massive head descended where Dante's had been a heartbeat earlier, jaws snapping shut with enough force to pulverize stone. The impact cratered the ground, fragments exploding outward in a violent spray. Dante was already gone, dropping low and rolling beneath the missed bite as the Lion's breath blasted over him, hot.

The world narrowed.

Pain flared sharply in his left arm as the motion tore at ruined muscle and shattered bone, a white-hot lance that nearly stole his balance.

He ignored it.

Dante came up beneath the Lion's jaw, his right hand shot upward—not toward the throat, not toward the eyes, but higher. His fingers drove brutally into the beast's nostrils, plunging deep, gripping cartilage and flesh without hesitation.

The Lion roared.

The sound was loud and enraged—and cut short as Dante moved.

He planted his feet, twisted his torso, and used the Lion's own momentum against it. The massive body left the ground with a thunderous crash as Dante wrenched upward and over, hauling the beast across his shoulder in a movement that was as precise as it was savage.

The Lion hit the earth hard.

Stone shattered as dust erupted. The ground buckled beneath the impact as the Nemean Lion slammed onto its back, the force rippling outward in visible shockwaves. It writhed, claws scraping uselessly as it tried to right itself, its roar breaking into a strangled snarl.

Dante did not linger.

He leaned back sharply, spine arching just as a bolt of lightning screamed through the space his head had occupied an instant earlier. The bolt tore across the plains in a blinding line of red, detonating against distant stone with an explosion that sent debris raining down like shrapnel.

Orthrus had recovered.

Both heads reared back as the hound skidded to a halt, paws digging furrows into the earth. Its snarls were feral now, stripped of coordination, fury overwhelming it. Red lightning crawled across its body in violent bursts, the air around it screaming as the energy gathered.

Orthrus's mouths opened in perfect symmetry.

And then the air filled with light.

Two dozen orbs of condensed lightning bloomed into existence in the span of a breath, hovering around Orthrus. Each sphere pulsed violently, their intensity distorting the air.

They launched all at once.

The orbs screamed forward at impossible speed, tearing up the ground as they passed, their wake carving glowing scars into the ground. Each one hit with absurd force, detonating in violent bursts that sent chunks of earth spiraling skyward.

Dante's eyes tracked them instantly.

His body moved before conscious thought could catch up.

The Nemean Lion was already forcing itself upright, shaking its massive head as it snarled in fury. Dante vaulted forward, boots striking its broad back with a sharp impact that sent a tremor through the beast's spine. It roared in outrage, but Dante used it without hesitation—pushing off with explosive force.

He leapt.

The lightning orbs passed beneath him in a roaring wave, detonating one after another as they slammed into the ground. The explosions overlapped, shockwaves crashing together in a deafening sound that tore the plains apart. Stone vaporized. Dust and debris swallowed the lower half of the plains in a rolling cloud of destruction.

Dante twisted midair, controlling his descent with meticulousness. He landed lightly beyond the barrage, boots touching down with barely a sound despite the pain screaming through his body. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, blood dripping steadily from the ruined gauntlet, soaking into the earth.

He made no sound.

Only a slow breath.

Behind him, the aftermath unfolded.

The ground where the lightning had struck was unrecognizable—cratered, heated in places, bolts of residual energy crawling over shattered stone. Orthrus stood at the edge of the devastation, panting, lightning still snapping erratically across its form. The Nemean Lion shook itself free of dust and rubble, its eyes burning with renewed hatred as it locked onto Dante's back.

Echidna watched it all in silence.

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